Keith Barlow shares how learning other languages was embraced by his family.
Growing up in Pleasanton, I was urged by my mother to take Spanish in middle school. Mom learned Spanish as a part of life in south Texas and she recognized the utility of being fluent in Spanish, especially here in California. Despite Mom’s urging, though, I rebelled and I took German because I was the defiant teenager and she was the busy-body parent. Now, almost 50 years on, however, I remember very little of that German.
Mom’s urging clicked, though, with my daughter, who did learn Spanish and became an exchange student in the Pleasanton Tulancingo Sister City Association, where our city had established cultural ties with Tulancingo, a city in central Mexico. After just one month in the exchange, my daughter had gained a Mexican family and my Pleasanton children gained a Mexican brother. And in the next year, my daughter fell in love with another son of Tulancingo and they later wed.
Spanish language and culture are part of our daily lives in California. Just look around at the street and city names, and our state is an ever-exploding mix of other languages and cultures, too. Though this diversity is welcomed, most immigrants arrive already speaking enough English to get along and then become even more proficient over time, while so many of us native-born citizens remain in stasis, speaking only English.
Not following in their father’s footsteps, both of my sons also speak Spanish. And my daughter and her husband are raising their children to be fluent in both English and Spanish.